This Power of Mine
by Summer Hugh
Summary: "God Eaters." Devour the strong, protect the weak. That is the trademark of God Eaters, but every maxim has unspoken omissions, do they not? "Kill him." *Major rewrite finished! Chapter updates on the way.
1. Chapter 1: Incompetent

_**Author's Note: This story has undergone a major rewrite to make it more enjoyable to readers. Sorry that it took such a long time, and thank you for reading.**_

**Chapter 1: Incompetent**

_Day __1_

_Struggle was a beautiful thing._

No matter how hard he tried to shake off that morbid idea, Adal just could not get rid of it. He was disgusted—why would he think such a thing? The loss of someone did not merely leave a hole in one's heart—it chewed the hole out in the first place.

But, even so, there is something in tears and fights that incite the idea of a person venturing into worlds of strife that others would never have gotten the chance to experience otherwise—exploring worlds of power; becoming stronger. It was something that not a single individual could ever feel; get to know, but rather, it was species that did; a collective experience that organisms of many kinds go through, as wholes.

It was evolution—the medium of reality in which running was not a "cowardly" or "dishonorable" act, but rather, a godly one; an act of supreme ingeniosity, whose doer's genes are something referred to as divine, and, as a consequence, desired.

Yet it was evolution that allowed the same organisms, all those species, to be wiped out. Where are they now, then? Heaven? But do animals go to Heaven? Hell? But that was where they came _from._

Hell they lived. In Hell they died. From Hell they came; came unto Hell.

It was Hell on earth. Hell in their minds.

Adal pitied the elephants that remained on this planet, as well as any other animal, for that matter. Claw that—he pitied_ all _things alive. However, right then, he pitied _himself_ the most.

He was about to die.

"Adal! Move!" The Zygote was bombarded by explosive bullets, all shot in rapid succession. Its mouth closed. It blinked its eye. It roared, and then it flew at Karel.

The Zygotes were everywhere. They flew and swooped at them and blasted them with air and poison. They shrieked and simply instilled fear in Adal like never before. He was not ready for "the battlefield", after all.

"Tch!" Karel rolled to his side to avoid the attack, risking getting devoured from the side by another Zygote. But he was prepared. As he rolled, he spun his God Arc along with his body's motion, jamming its barrel into the Aragami's open mouth as deeply and hard as he could, hoping against knowledge for it to rip through its body completely.

No such luck.

The god's bulbous body was far too thick for a flat chunk of Oracle cells to pierce through, but it was not far too slippery to not be stuck with the gun's end in its mouth. Karel let the gun let rip. The bullets let the Zygote burst.

With a high-velocity whirl, and a shocking static buzz, the God Arc ate the Zygote's body inside out, not so unlike a flesh-eating parasite. It left behind the carapace of a deity—a miserable representation of a God Eater's work. It was no more than a heap of Oracle cell, scrubbed of all life—whatever life there was.

Gina sniped down the flying deities relentlessly, not missing a beat from one target to another, only stopping to dodge attacks aimed to disembowel, stun, or erase her altogether, though, from where she ran, the "gods" seemed more like a swarm of flies, swooping down on them to feed like the maggots they probably harbored inside their bodies.

Wherever Gina's bullets flew, a trail of vacuum vanished, leaving behind a phantom of Death's shadow that her bullets carried. Under the shade of Death's gun, even gods succumbed.

Sometimes, Death would make way for a steel blade. Particularly a steel blade dipped and washed in the blood of gods, extracted from the very fiber of the divine's making. Its sharpness was, indeed, without lack of firmness.

A Zygote flew at Adal. Overhead, a dark shadow loomed. Long and thick, its edge was feared by the greatest of mountains.

Mightily so.

The Zygote's face showed glee. The next moment, the half of Zygote's face showed glee. Glee and blood—it got what it wanted. _Is__ th__ine__ blood to __th__ine__ liking, Lord Zygote?_

Only one half had been splashed with its blood. One half had tiny splatterings of vile liquid; the other was dirtier—vilely so.

Shun's blade sliced the god apart, no red showing on its black luster. The heavier part of the Zygote's body was dragged first by the thirsty underworld. The part containing less fat was left in suspension longer. When flight mechanism failed, it, too, fell, albeit closer toward its corresponding side than the other had done.

Adal had to be brave. A Zygote was flying at him. He had to prove himself as a God Eater; he could not failhehadto_hehadto-_

He screamed, raising his blade like he would swat a fly out of the air. A large, deadly, _godly _fly.

He did not swing. If he had tried to, he would be left as a mere slab of half-eaten meat. He simply was not quick enough.

He had to block the blow. It pushed him back several meters, he who hid behind his shield. Adal could hear its ferocious snarling; _smell_ the _death_ in its breath. He had to defeat this one, at least. He _had_ to.

It was a miracle that no other had come to gobble him up whilst he was struggling right then. Then again, his teammates were probably fighting them off; _many_ of them off while he fought against _one_.

Adal could not hold much longer.

He screamed frustration, fear, instability and weakness. He pushed it away with a hollow, metallic _clang_, and just as it was flying back at him after recovering, he jammed his blade into its mouth, through and through, believing the whole time that it could devour him right there and then, whereas its mouth was full with the God Arc. The entire time, he was shaking.

It was over.

Gina and Karel laid off the remaining Zygotes wriggling about on the cracked earth, putting an end to them with a last wave of bullets.

They then ran over to where Shun was yelling at Adal, the latter's God Arc dropping to and clattering on the ground, like a toy, as he, face dirtied with something like gore, broke down and fought his own battle—the fight to stay still, all the while melting in his own blood.

He heard its rush, which drowned out the world around him.

**End of Chapter 1: Incompetent**

**Next Chapter:**

**An enigmatic threat**

**An alien being**


	2. Chapter 2: Phenomenon

**Chapter 2: Phenomenon**

_Day 1-1_

_Knock, knock._

"Hey, Old Man Sakaki," the Retaliation Unit Leader stood outside the lab to the scientist's laboratory. He was dressed in the Far East Branch's regular Commander Uniform, except that it had been modified so that its brown coattails went below his belt. "Hibari said you wanted to see me."

"Come in, Lindow!" the scientist's voice came from behind the door, muffled a tiny bit. Lindow Amamiya could detect the jolly hum in his voice. It was not subtle at all—considering the man's personality, Lindow doubted he even bothered to hide it.

He stood in front of the gray-haired man who sat in the center of his computer screens that surrounded him almost like a cage. His fingers rapidly typed away at his keyboards, inputting whatever information there was to store for future research, while his expression was aloof and distant, as if he were plunged into another dimension in his enthusiasm for scientific discoveries.

He always seemed like that whenever Lindow came to see him in his workplace. He did not know whether or not this was deliberately done so that he gave off the impression of a hard worker, but he would rather not consider that. What would frighten him even more greatly, however, would be the fact that he _actually _sat in that position every day in a week doing the same thing for every hour—and not think much of it.

"So," Lindow started professionally. "Why do you want to see me?"

"Ah," he tilted his head up to face Lindow's imposing figure as the man stood over him behind one of the monitors that were fixed in place directly in front of him. As he did so, his hands did not even switch their rhythm, as if the man had a third eye fixed on the screens hidden somewhere underneath his sleeves. "Oh, yes," he looked back at the monitors, something in his voice making Amamiya wonder if it was the same man who had given him the permission to enter the room. "Just a moment, I just need to finish File 8168X2FR5- _and_ done!" he ended his sentence as he brought down a gloved finger onto the central keyboard(there were two others flanking him).

Before he could ask the older man what File 8168X2FR5 was, the screen on his right—Lindow's right—turned to face him, a mechanical _vreem_ accompanying its movement.

The screen showed Lindow a part of the Forgotten Carrier, amber sunlight baking the ground like it was the crust of a sandwich. The place was desolate, there not seeming to be signs of movement except for the _very _sluggish current of the waters far in the background. It looked more like liquefied color, the water, sometimes amber, brown, and some others blue, of varying darker shades. It was a silent video—the ones taken by the Far East Branch's cameras usually are, especially when it was for surveillance, documentation, or research.

Lindow was confused. Why was Sakaki showing him this?

He opened his mouth to ask a question, but right after he did, the other man cut him off, saying, in a chipper tone, "Just keep on looking." It was as if the man was expecting Lindow to raise an eyebrow, at least, the one covered by his hair.

A few more seconds. No change. Soon, Lindow was paying less attention to the image itself and more toward the quality of the image. Horizontal black lines started to form in his vision of the screen, and he couldn't help but decide to raise another question, when something caught his eye. "See something?" Sakaki inquired, seemingly aware of Lindow's slight shift in posture.

There was a crack in the earth, like it was alive, the gap looking like an open mouth of something much larger beneath it. From what Lindow knew, or have seen, Aragami do _not_ form cracks in the ground when they emerge. Basically, the Oracle cells in the earth would accumulate on the surface according to their specific paradigm, be it Ogretails, Gboro-Gboro, or Vajra. They start forming up in the air like a statue reverse-disintegrating, and this process was so quick an Ouroboros could come into existence within half a second.

But this was not what happened in the video. The Aragami—or what seemed like one—wriggled out into the open space. But it did not go any further. Lindow's body tensed as if he felt the ghosts of all the Aragami he had killed snapping at him with their jaws when he saw that the _creature_ raised its "head" into the air.

It didn't even _look_ like an Aragami—too soft, too squishy-looking. Too slow, and it looked as if it lacked the energy to ever do anything at all. He doubted it would live if a kid from the Outer Ghetto shoved sticks at it, the fat, blubber-covered thing.

It looked like a man-sized maggot—one that didn't eat flesh. Or anything at all.

But it might be hiding a larger body beneath the earth; some kind of...subterranean Aragami….

Then all suspicions about the creature being an Aragami were swept away as black spots appeared in the air all around the area, like the remnants of a dream shredded upon waking up. Black spots; like an otherworldly, doorless portal. Doorless because they didn't have any holes in them—throughout, they were entirely black, like orbs.

They made their way, these "particles", toward the tip of the maggot's mouth—and disappeared there. He spotted an Ogretail in the background. It did not seem to have noticed the creature. All of a sudden,

_POOF!_

or at least, something that seemed like it would sound that way; the camera had had no microphones installed.

Before Lindow's eyes, in the video, the Ogretail crumbled away into the same black spores floating in the air. But what struck him as mystifyingly perplexing was the fact that the small Aragami did not appear to notice. Aragami were creatures of instinct. If they realized something was wrong, they didn't _think—_they _act__ed__._

The Ogretail did not do that. It kept walking as the tip of its tail began to disappear, its legs next. As its body fell toward the earth its mouth gaped open in what Lindow would guess to be a roar as its head finally disintegrated.

"_What did I do wrong?"_

Gone; that simply. Absorbed by the unknown being.

The video ended there.

Lindow turned to the scientist for answers, but it was then that he realized, judging from the slumped shoulders and uncharacteristic demeanor of low-spiritedness, that Sakaki did not have a proper explanation.

And that Lindow was probably the first one Sakaki had shown this video to.

"Professor Ernsta Frei from the German-Austrian Branch conducted a field study several months ago." His start was pathetic, as if trying to make up for the lapse in his energetic persona. Lamely, he continued, "She was accompanied by a few God Eaters and went to investigate the area surrounded by the Crack. Do you know what she found, Lindow?"

Was he even supposed to answer? Perhaps there had been things done in other places that people in other branches were alerted about. He did not know; he had been more focused on carrying out what HQ told him to—uncovering something behind-the-scenes here in the Far East Branch that Johannes was currently under suspicion of.

He did not know.

"...I-"

Another silence, as if Sakaki had spoken to interrupt him. He clearly did not.

"On the surface," he spoke again, as if no pause had been made, "it may seem that the special type of Oracle that she discovered could be used for further research in the small Aragami Repellent Office. But Ernsta is smarter than that. She was skeptical, as always have been, and examined them for some time. Aragami that got close would immediately flee—something too good to be true.

"Those Oracle cells repelled those Aragami—or did they? The Aragami that were exposed to them—they ran away and..._broke down. _'Spots floated in the air around us, deep, black orbs. I wanted to investigate, but the God Eaters seemed uneasy. The orbs floated around for a little while and faded away.' Field report by Ernsta Frei, 4th March 2071.

"Oracle cells and Oracle are two different things. Oracle cells are those that reside inside God Eaters' bodies, while Oracle is the energy harvested from such cells. Oracle can break up the bonds between Oracle cells, thus destroying their structure."

"What does this have to d-"

"EVERYTHING!"

_He's back._ Lindow internally sighed. He was not used to having such tension in the air with Sakaki present.

"These black particles—you know what they are? Those are Oracle in compressed form! Not even the cutting-edge tech in Fenrir's current physics department can pull that off! What I theorize, as I'm sure you do, too, Lindow, is that that thing _must_ be something close to the center of all Aragami. If it rose from the earth to gather up Oracle, then there must be something _big_ going on. What, I can't tell yet. But for now, what I want you to do, Lindow, is to keep this is mind. Remember everything you learned today, and I want you to alert me as soon as possible the moment you _think_ something _might_ be related to this event."

"Sure, I guess." He could swear he felt a bead of sweat forming on his cheek—it was not even hot!

"Promise me. You have to."

"I do, I do! I swear!"

"Good," sighing, he slumped back into his seat. Noticing this, Lindow stood upright again, rubbing his back. _He _really _needs to stop doing that…_

**End of Chapter 2: Phenomenon**

**Next Chapter:**

**Impatience and anger**

**It is time to act**


	3. Chapter 3: Training

**Chapter 3: Training**

_Day 6_

"Augh!" A clanging noise was produced as the God Arc replica clattered across the floor with Adal already on it on his posterior.

He rubbed his rear, feeling it to be sore. His body throbbed in various places, mostly from where he had been hit, but the achings were duller than in the part he had fallen on.

"Come on!" The energetic voice of Xiva sounded over him, laced with complaint. She had her own blade pointed at him. The impatience of the girl dumbfounded him, and the strenuous sparring seemed to only have served to make it worse. "Get up!"

The authority in her voice was more than compelling.

"I-" Adal began. As stealthily as possible in the situation, which was not too much, he lunged at her immediately after getting up, batting aside her "weapon" with his own, and thusforth stabbed at her stomach. He did this, simultaneously getting off the floor. "-a_m!_"

He was beaten down pathetically again, falling onto the floor on his chest this time. Xiva's strikes were decisive and powerful; Adal wondered where she learned to fight like that—she was just as much of a rookie as he was!

Or, perhaps, the problem laid with him…?

He got up again, shoulder blade smarting. He ignored it. A mentor? A veteran God Eater? _Self-taught?_

Before he could even make a swipe at her—_Shup!—a_nd he was down again.

He did not get back up this time.

The "strike" had been a stab this time, and he was curling up on the steel floor, breathing in the rust. He tried not to throw up, but the strain from the attempt was dizzying.

Tears stung his eyes and blurred his vision completely, leaving only wet patches of color from an ant's point of view.

Time passed. He could not feel anything outside his struggle to save his breakfast, and his stomach kept on rumbling; a declaration of war.

Xiva, on the other hand, kept on pacing around about his crumpled form, swinging her "God Arc" at the air at imaginary Aragami opponents. _I had it, I had it, I had it! I could be a Sergeant by now if it hadn't been for that _stupid _Ogretail!_

A retching noise snapped its fingers in the face of her attention, and she looked over to Adal, any thought about why he was taking so long to get back up erased.

"A-Adal?" she stuttered concernedly.

"Urf…."

…

Xiva waited outside as her friend threw up his precious breakfast in the men's room and cleaned up. She did not necessarily have to wait for him to be done; he probably would appreciate it, but she herself felt obligated to apologize for hitting him that hard, especially considering how much of a…

...wimp…

...he was. However, truthfully, she had been so consumed by the idea that she could have been promoted instantly if they had been impressed by how much potential she had shown, that she did not bother taking into account that it was a _friend_ she had been sparring with.

She had treated Adal like a punching bag for her to let out her frustrations on.

Her judgement had been clouded by her greed, and now she was putting their friendship in jeopardy….

She heard the door open and thought that Adal had finished, but it turned out to be her squad leader, Tatsumi O'Mori, who walked out. She caught faint retching noises from the inside toilet before the door closed, and her brows furrowed even more.

She was afraid that her superior would start scolding her then and there, or he would ignore her completely—they had not spoken to each other since the failure of their mission four days ago.

She struck a military-style salute—the one universally recognized. Tatsumi noticed her, then, in the hallway. "It's you," he said. He smiled uneasily before returning the gesture. His posture had quickly changed from that of someone who had just finished relieving himself into one of a military authority.

Xiva admired him for that.

"Really, Xiva," he started, breaking the silence she had never realized was there. "You don't have to be so formal all the time."

_So, he's not angry?_

A look of worry then appeared on his face. "What happened?" Cue. It was her turn to feel uneasy. "I meant to ask him, but I didn't want to disturb him. Is Adal okay?"

Sweat formed on her hands and she wiped them on her Formal Uniform: Plum. "Well..."

When she trailed off and averted her gaze, he did not push it. Instead, he changed the subject of their conversation."I remember. I want to talk to you about something, Xiva."

"That being?" The younger God Eater perked up, her posture straightening expectantly. The same hope that made her actions earlier brash crawled back into her, despite a silent abolition—at least, it was verbal and self-made; not being declared in front of anyone.

"**You shouldn't rush to your death so soon."** The change in his tone surprised her. If she had not always practiced her posture, she was sure she would have crumpled underneath his _power_ful gaze. "If you're still thinking about the possibility of an immediate promotion, then forget about it."

Xiva tried to find a more comfortable position(for some reason, there was an urge), but found that, upon moving, she felt like the world was watching her, shaking its head.

It was as if everyone was disappointed at her.

She was embarrassed.

"You're still new in this profession, and I don't want you thinking about the trivial stuff already. Being able to worry about rank and position is a privilege for those who have secured their capability to not die on the battlefield soundly."

He then made his move, breaking his eyes away from her gradually shaking ones. Curving around her, he moved toward the Section Elevator purposefully. It was the stride of a _true_ God Eater—something Xiva still had a long way to achieve; his shoulder were broadly held, his spinal cord was upright, yet his waist was ever so slightly bent forward, symbolizing a known future.

His legs were more similar to steel rods than they were to jointed limbs, but not even once did they bring to her mind stiff sticks. A confident aura surrounded his figure; his _air_. It made Xiva feel inferior, and, even worse, she came to the mortifying realization that he did not give off a challenging look—_she_ did.

As he passed, he said the famed words Xiva never heard from him:

"Fight not to win. Fight to _not _lose. That's our main tactic as Defense Squad God Eaters."

Entering the Section Elevator, he whisked his presence away from Xiva's.

She then realized how she, a girl, was standing alone in the hallway of the men's floor, waiting for a boy who might just sulk in the toilet for the rest of the day.

Her fists shook at her side.

**End of Chapter 3: Training**

**Next Chapter:**

**Memories of death**

**A delusional fear**


	4. Chapter 4: Bento

**Chapter 4: Bento**

_Day 7_

It had been six days since their transfer to the Far East Branch, and they had done nothing but train and fail their respective first missions. There had been problems involving the scheduled departures and arrivals between their home branches' and the Far East's, since it had turned out that they were moved some time too early.

The complications, however, were only waved off by the Director Schicksal in a haste to mow down the threatening increase in Zygote and Ogretail populations surrounding the High-Rises Area and the Tornado Alley respectively, but due to the paling results of those missions, coupled with God Eater Cordova's below subpar performance on the field, the Director had no choice but to lay it off after a reminding warning from the Board of Directors that the responsibility for their transferred assets' safety was on his hands.

The endeavor, however, paid off sufficiently well, though barely, in holding back the advances of the Aragami toward Anagura. However, one might think that it _could_ have yielded better results had the newest transfers not gone along with the deployed teams.

In short, Xiva and Adal had to pass only one more day before they could depart on their next mission. During their past six, Adal's growth in duel with her had been consistently improving, though they both kept in mind that fighting Aragami was an entirely different thing. Factors such as honor, chivalry, and the pure presence of restraint from turning their opponent into mere blood hold the wall of difference together.

_Clang, clang, clang!_

They let go, the male fingering his sore thumb. Xiva placed her rod over her shoulder like she would her God Arc. Its other end was visible behind her other shoulder, where it spanned an impressive 15 centimeters more before ending there.

"Did you hear?" she said between shallow breaths. She continued without Adal's gesture to do so, since he was too tired to do anything other than bend over in exhaustion and try to recover as quickly as possible, in case Xiva happened to be in a naughty mood and attacked him while he was incapacitated.

"They said that since our...well, incident five days ago, the Board of Directors are sending in more new recruits."

She continued her ramble, gossips strung together into one huge dump of information that Adal was too tired to try and understand. He could not decide with his current state of mind whether or not the information might serve him well in the future. He felt sicker than usual, probably because he had not eaten since he threw up yesterday.

He noticed a twitch that his friend made when she said the word "incident". Shutting his eyes as he inhaled and ex-ed, he thought about how inconsiderate of her feelings he had been.

He straightened up, a bit shaky, and walked over to her. He was as tall as she was, so they saw eye to eye, physically, when they stood in front of each other.

"Xiva," he said, surprised at how ragged his own voice sounded—prior to becoming a God Eater, he had never engaged in nearly enough strenuous activities to be considered healthy, which may explain some of his physical deficiencies compared to Xiva. _Yes, _he thought._ That must be it._

__He did not know what he wanted to say. He did not even know what _to_ say.

She blinked, her large eyes looking at him patiently. "Yeah?"

He became flustered—something he had never experienced when talking with Xiva.

_Oh no, oh no, oh no. _Adal turned away from her, leaving her confused. He no longer bothered to make it seem like he had anything to say to her, lost in his own thoughts, devastated in the new prospect.

Xiva frowned slightly at the problematic sight and suddenly grew worried. Anxious, even. Perhaps she had gone too far yesterday, hitting him like that? Her friend was acting as if she was…anybody else. First, Tatsumi got mad at her, and now Adal could not bring himself to talk to her. If this kept up, she would probably—no, _definitely_ end up without friends. It would be the exact opposite of what she had been dreaming of achieving—popularity and rank.

_But, _she found herself thinking, _is that really all that matters? Is Adal _really_ just that to me?_

Hold on.

Was she starting to…!?

"Adal!" she yelled at him, a sudden outburst of panic and unease fueling her actions.

Her movements' fluidity was renewed by them, and she wanted to _get it over with. _What this '_it_' was, she did not know. Nor, for the time being, did she care.

The blue-haired teen turned around to find horror flooding into his bloodstream.

He saw her standing feet away from him, and she raised her rod in front of her, bending her elbows, bracing her shoulders.

An audible _clench_ was heard, and it felt like the air had split, oxygen molecules fleeing from her as fast as they could, forming a vacuum sphere around her body.

It was her aura.

Adal could not breathe, could not run, could not think—he could only despair:

_What is this?_

He blacked out.

…

A dream.

It was composed of images his brain conjured for him, prompted by his feelings, his memories, his worries.

He did not want to die. He wanted to live, and yet he was forced to become a God Eater.

A God Eater.

That was because people needed him; someone to protect them. However, how could someone find motivation to do something he was not willing to do? As shameful as it was, and he had never admitted this to anybody, even if he was given all the superpowers that the superheroes he grew up watching on television had in order to save the world, or even _someone_, he would not do it—he would be too scared.

Too scared to die.

No one was invincible—no one. Even if there was only a half percent chance of him dying to save someone, that chance still existed. Everything he knew, all of it, would be gone the instant he closed his eyes a final time.

He saw him, his brother. Bento Cordova, God Eater, Savior of the People, a Saint; _a D__á__diva de Deus._

An "extraordinary God Eater, a wonderful fighter, a brilliant tactician, a great leader, and, most of all, a precious comrade".

He died.

And it was not due to him fighting a horde of Vajra alone, or saving his own family, or someone else's, during that ghetto breach six years ago—no, it was because he had let his guard down for a moment.

It was a day after a regular mission, and he was chatting with his comrades he had brought along with him. A helicopter was bound to pick them up, and, as he was boarding it last, as he had always done, he felt his leg being bitten, and he was pulled back by a newborn Ogretail.

He had probably had the mindset of having nothing left to lose; 'his leg was destroyed, and he could not be the God Eater he once was'. And _still_ he could not save himself from the group of small Aragami despite having killed things like Vajra and Borg Camlann before.

Adal was never there, at the scene, personally, but he had always dreamt what it might have been like; the screams and yells of comrades, the growing anxiety and fear of the pilot, the uneasing worry that the vehicle might be pulled down and destroyed, the ever-present chaos of chopping sounds in the air and the snarling right at the ear that was being bitten off and which he was dragged by—the knowledge of absolute death piercing through the denseness of his confidence… The things that would have been lucid and coherent otherwise were clouded over by the fear of death.

That was fear, and chaos. The luxurious life God Eaters led was not without a price—obvious, but unpronounced. It could end at any moment, and he did not even have to be outside to face his end—the walls did not promise safety; the Aragami could come _to him._

As a ten-year-old, the younger Cordova had always thought how unfair it was. The captain of Bento's unit had come to deliver the news to his family, and, as he had peeked outside the window as his parents wept at the door, he saw that a small crowd was gathering outside to hear about the charismatic soldier's death. Two God Eaters were crying.

Then the memory about the death of another God Eater came to him. It was Bento's comrade who lived only three days as his comrade. He remembered seeing Bento being depressed about it for a while.

But no crowd gathered outside. The leader of their unit did not come over—he did not even know who her parents were.

He did not even know what her name was. The only reason why he knew about her existence at all was because she had come to visit his family one time, when Bento debuted as a God Eater, which was around the same time that she had. Otherwise, that period of time in which Bento was depressed would have been locked away in the deeper part of his subconscious, where it would be labeled as an enigmatic memory that might or might not have happened.

Thinking about it, did Bento not start out being incompetent? Was her death not the cause of his surge in improvement? Wait, how did Bento look like?

…

Yes, that was it. Bento looked like that. He looked like him, just like him.

What was his friend's name? Adal did not know, but perhaps...perhaps… Was it...Xiva ?

Bento's friend was Xiva?

Wait. That was not Bento. That was him. That was Adal.

Xiva, getting eaten…_ That's not me, that's not me…Xiva's not dead, she's not…!_

Thinking about it, the both of them proved to be quite...incompetent on the field, right?

How many missions had they gone on?

**Three?**

…

He woke with a start.

He was in his room. He looked at his digital clock, covered in sweat.

_Day 8_

**End of Chapter 4: Bento**

**Next Chapter:**

**Visions of the future**

**The end of a friend**


	5. Chapter 5: All too Real

**Chapter 5: All too Real**

_Day 8_

_7:30a.m., _his clock said.

The Section Elevator was in his sight, directly ahead of him, as soon as he got out and shut the door behind him.

Tsubaki's words came to him as he waited in the elevator, accompanied by its slightly, occasionally shuddering mechanisms… It was seven days ago:

_On the 1st of October, 2071, which is exactly a week from now, the both of you will be returned to duty. The training facilities available to the other God Eaters will not be open to the both of you, so I expect you to find another way to train during this period of time. Wait for further notifications and return to duty during the specified date at 6 o' clock sharp._

Even though he just woke up, Adal felt sweat slickening his curled palms. He was late; late on the very day he felt obliged to redeem himself.

He did not bother to wash himself whatsoever and stepped into the Entrance floor, heart pounding since he was in the Rookies' Section's hallway.

…

"Private Cordova." Tsubaki Amamiya was waiting for him. Gen Momota was on the upper floor, conversing with a small group of people by the Departure Gate. Aside from them, Adal did not see many other people in his short time there. "You're late."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am." He curled up some of his uniform's fabric in his hands and did his best to face her, his eyes darting away from her face every couple seconds.

A cold feeling washed over him when she spoke her next word, expecting a severe punishment in its place.

"Fine."

He twitched with shock, eyes involuntarily widening. "Ma'am?"

"I said fine. Your friend Private Rocha had been waiting for you in the hall downstairs for twenty minutes, insisting on taking her tutorial class with you the entire time," she said, her tone surprisingly not as strict as he had expected. "The plan originally was to send the both of you together on a mission with Lindow after you two took the training course, but since you're late…" Lifting up a paper from her clipboard to look at the one under it, the former God Eater read silently, her eyes filled with a degree of focus the new God Eater found inhuman.

"She will be going with Brendan Bardell and Kanon Daiba instead, whereas you'll be staying behind for the tutorial classes you missed." A short pause, and they both looked at each others' eyes, Adal feeling a strange sense of calm. "You will be using the Simulation Hall, as she had done the last hour."

He nodded. "Yes, Ma'am." He wanted to say thank you, but the words were lost as they had never been in his truly main interests, anyway.

"However…," she started again, Adal's back straightening. "Private Rocha was able to complete her classes within thirty minutes, which is faster than any other God Eater has been able to demonstrate so far under my supervision. They usually take forty or more.

"While she is undertaking this mission of hers, you will be undergoing extra-intense training sessions, and you will be doing this for the entire day until I am satisfied, do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Adal?" A voice, one he was accustomed to hearing for the past seven days, cut through his anxious daze and penetrated into his mind. He felt a strange sense of homeliness.

He turned to see a girl with rust red hair walking towards him, and somehow he did not recognize her on sight. She wore a different outfit than he was used to seeing her, a sleeveless vest and a short, pleated skirt in place of her uniform, the latter of which she wore quite low. He could see traces of her hipbones and looked away quite quickly when he realized he was staring.

To him, however, the most notable change in her appearance was her hairstyle—she wore it in a ponytail. A plain, black hairband combed back her red locks well, one uniform bang swept across her forehead quite elegantly.

He could see her eyes more clearly now; her magenta irises were fixed on his emerald ones more than he had ever realized they were.

"Xiva," he said, confused. She was not wearing her uniform? Why?

"Once you pass your tests, Cordova, you will be allowed to wear whatever outfit you find to be least constraining to your performance," Tsubaki said, cutting off whatever conversation might have come of the two's new-day meeting. "Join your teammates by the gate, Rocha. You will be going soon."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Wait!" His sudden exclamation caught both women off-guard. He was going to do this. He _had_ to. Bento… Bento's friend died on the third day, didn't she? Adal was not one to be much more superstitious than the average person, especially nowadays, but if his friend's life was on the line, he would not be taking risks.

None.

"Let me go with her, please."

The first answer he received was not from Tsubaki. It was from Xiva.

"Don't be silly, Adal."

He looked to her in surprise.

"Indeed." It was Tsubaki's turn to speak. "You haven't completed your training course, so we can't let you go again until you finish them."

Adal's gaze was still fixed on Xiva, the girl offering a not-exactly sheepish smile. He was hoping that she _somehow_ read his mind, that she would promise him that she would come back alive and whole. Instead, she told him something else: "Let's go on our next mission together."

As the gates closed and he entered the hall alone, Tsubaki watched him from a room whose windows were placed high on the opposite wall. The mature woman's voice, spoken through a microphone, came out to his ears as a muffled one. His head was filled with his own voice.

The training sessions must be counted as a mission on its own, thus the one Xiva was going on now would be her third.

"Please don't die." His whisper was lost to the drowning roars of the simulated Ogretails.

He was surprised he could even speak at all.

…

"He's your friend, isn't he?"

"Adal?"

"Yeah."

The three 2nd Unit God Eaters walked through the Sunken Grid, stepping on moss and crunching dead leaves underfoot. The place _should_ smell bad, but somehow, it did not, and they decide to ignore it. The air was eerily still, but the waters kept moving, flowing, into drainage pipes or into the sea.

Then a wind blew; a northern wind. Cold, frigid…short, like a lap of a puppy's tongue. Xiva should know. She lived in the ghettos of the Eastern European Branch. Though there were less of it there than those here… It was during a winter season, when her much younger self was playing with a stray pup.

She never saw another one again since then. It was winter now, was it not? The far east's winds were said to herald the changes in their future.

They kept their senses open for the Gboro-Gboro they were hunting for, along with the Ogretails that lurked under the shades cast by fallen structures.

"Are you close to him?" Brendan asked, moving his head here and there in order to spot any Aragami they might miss. He wore his blue jacket over a white shirt which he tucked into his brown pants. He also wore a belt over them, and his stride consisted of his brown boots scratching the dirty floor. "He seemed really worried about you just now."

Xiva took a while to answer. "I…don't know," she said, answering the second question. "I'm not sure why, but he looked really scared." The image of the wide-eyed expression of her friend still lingered in her mind. For some reason she could not fathom, it bothered her greatly. Whether it was for him, or for herself, she could not answer, for the question was not present to her.

"We became friends as soon as we met in the Den, but yesterday…" A foreign feeling tickled her gut, and all of a sudden she felt flushed, insecure. Uncomfortable.

"Xiva, are you blushing?" Kanon's voice called out on her.

"What?" She touched her face to feel that it was hot. "That's strange… It's actually quite cool in here."

Having found no sign of their target so far, they halted and decided to wait for it to come to them. Brendan resumed their conversation, "What do you think of him? Your friend?"

"I think he needs to improve a few things, like his social skills and his focus. Sometimes he just gets controlled by his fear and becomes unable to move." Xiva continued talking, taking a gulp of water from a plastic bottle she brought. "I'm worried that he might get killed one day."

Her seniors, watching her from the side, thought silently to themselves. _She's missing the point._

A monstrous shriek broke their peace. Hibari alerted them of its arrival.

…

They came at him, and he had no choice but to panic and move, panic and move.

Tsubaki yelled commands and advice from the room, but Adal was either too incompetent or too agitated with fear to hear them, so he spent his time swinging his sword wildly and tripping, swinging and tripping.

When Tsubaki told him that he would be undergoing "extra-intense" sessions, she was being quiet. This was a slaughter he was in. An Ogretail swung its tail at him, and Adal fought to stay calm, to see _clearly_. It hit him hard, making him skid to a stop on the floor.

_Xiva…_

He scrambled for his God Arc, but he felt a weight suddenly pressing against his back; a destructive stomp.

_Don't…_

He heard a growl; a terrible noise, and saw that the shadow which he was under became larger, spreading across the floor in front of his vision. He felt his blood spilling.

It felt all too real.

Suddenly all of it was gone. The weight, the shadow, the blood—all gone. He stood up, uniform creased, joints sore. He walked over to his God Arc and picked it up.

Tsubaki sighed. "_Let's try this one more time. We'll see how you'll fare against _three _Ogretails._"

He took a deep breath, trying to stop his shaking, his overwhelming adrenaline. _Like a professional, like a professional…_.

He ran between two of them and sliced at the one on his left, but it jumped away, allowing the other one to bite at him, but he was prepared this time. His buckler shield, fast to activate, was fast to activate. It expanded, the two parts clicking together, fitting into the giant mouth. He was pushed back by its weight and force, but with a surge of emotion and frustration, he pushed it back with all his might.

It did not fall. It only staggered backwards, head in the air.

During this exchange, the Ogretail on the far right, as well as the one that had jumped away, was already behind Adal, who was feeling distressed at the lack of impact that he made. The two predators opened their mouths, lunging at him.

He noticed them only quickly, or slowly, enough to be able to make his move.

He moved back; he jumped back. The small, short-but-quick backward dash was thankfully enough to get him out of the two's reach, and they slammed into each other, though without much force. They recovered quickly so that he still focused on them, his mind a messy jumble trying to unknot itself for a most effective solution; a perfect next move.

Only, the stumbling Ogretail had recovered. Over the two others blocking its previous position from his view, it jumped into the air to get Adal pinched between its fangs.

Quick.

He would not be able to block against that.

He dashed to the side, and forward toward the Ogretail on the right, finally landing a slash. And another one, and another one. Five slices on its side. The feeling was foreign to him; slashing Aragami. It felt like drawing a sharp stick across the wall of an old house made of cement—but it felt _right_.

Tsubaki, in the room, suddenly felt a comforting sensation rising in her chest. It sped up the rate at which her heart beat, just a little.

It was hope.

**End of Chapter 5: All too Real**

**Next Chapter:**

**Despair, regret**

**And stupidity**


	6. Chapter 6: Omen

**Chapter 6: Omen**

_Day 8_

"Hollowly shrill shrieks" would be a more accurate description of the noises that the Ogretails made than "roars". Thus, hollowly shrill shrieks bombarded her auditory senses as she blasted the Gboro-Gboro in its open mouth with her Scatter-type bullets, racing against time and rolling to her side into a clear area that Kanon would make for her as the Medium-sized Aragami launched itself toward her.

Xiva Rocha switched her God Arc to its blade form and made a large slash at the Gboro-Gboro's body, intent on ripping it in half as quickly as possible.

She knew it was impossible, but it was not a good enough reason to stop or slow her down. In fact, this idea was merely kept by her for its mindset-induced effects—_careful battle, which leads to the fastest possible elimination of enemies, which leads to more space for allies to move, which leads to getting hit by Kanon less._

It worked.

The pink-haired girl kept firing at the Small Aragami, mowing them down mercilessly, though not completely efficiently. Her manner of firing shots could be considered wild, if not for the fact that they usually hit their targets. Sometimes she would use Radial-type bullets instead of Explosive ones, which would lead to her hitting Brendan or Xiva, thus the inefficiency since she could have used Explosive bullets to stagger them instead.

Her behavior, as observed by Xiva during their first ever mission together with Tatsumi, was a cause for her wariness when around her. It was probably not her fault; other God Eaters had assured her of that much, too.

Brendan was, with Xiva, attacking the Gboro-Gboro most of the time, only moving back to provide cover for Kanon occasionally whenever she was about to be overwhelmed. Xiva, on the other hand….

Xiva was completely consumed on the Aragami before her. It was large, and had a tough hide, with attacks that had erratic rates of fire and could launch a full-bodied attack unexpectedly.

She felt uneasy knowing these, and her mind was soon filled with worry and anxiety that would cause her to lose sight of the battleground, but she knew she had to focus.

Losing all those thoughts and fighting just as she always had been since the start of her battle was the best approach, and she resumed that way, the Aragami weakening with time faster than the God Eaters lost their stamina with movement.

_Then _its rage was incurred.

…

Adal fell to the ground and got back up, his legs feeling more and more like stone as he fought on. The three Ogretails had been downed a long time ago, and he was combating a Kongou now.

It swiped at him, and he blocked. It blasted him with compressed air, and he blocked. It curled up and barreled toward him with the force of three Ogretails, and he still blocked. Then it punched him—Adal lost all his stamina and waited for it land a deadly strike on him.

He was lucky. Aragami were not quite intelligent enough to be that skilled in tactics. Instead, it swiped at him again, this time succeeding in causing great damage.

He was flung to the far wall and felt so helplessly like a…a…_soccer ball_.

His back, covered in sweat with his uniform clinging to it by it, made him feel sick as the cold steel dulled his senses. He coughed, facing the floor, and saw blood on it.

He stopped; he froze.

The Kongou roared, upon him, and as he braced himself for the blow….

The simulation had stopped and Tsubaki looked at him in disappointment. _His moves are getting sloppy…_.

"_Adal Cordova,_" she said, getting his attention. Adal looked up, at the glass panel above with sweat dripping from his chin. He was drenched in it, his body feeling hot…hotter than he had ever been.

He brushed his hand against the floor and felt that the blood was not present. He touched his neck, and crumpled onto the cold steel, his God Arc's clatter echoing in the vast, cold chamber. "_Your solo performance against the Kongou has proven to be exceedingly impressive so far. You have broken its tail and it pipes, but not its mask._"

Her voice continued over Adal's heavy breathing. He shut his eyes to recover as much as possible, his ocular senses feeling overtaxed themselves, and, through the curtain of sweat, he could only see distorted, blurred images. He felt the rivulets filling the crevices between his eyes and the bridge of his nose. "_Fight five more Ogretails, and you will be dismissed for the day._"

He did not think; he only got up and picked up his weapon. The word "dismissed" was too inviting. The five Ogretails roared in his face, and he felt no fear—he could not die here. Fingering his throat from which he coughed "up blood", he dashed into the middle of the horde, scattering them and tackling them one-on-one as much as he could.

…

"Xiva, move!" Brendan shouted in her general direction, and she was thankful for the words of warning after being busy shooting her allies with both Recovery and Link Burst bullets. The Ogretails had all been exterminated, and all that was left was their sole mission target.

The Gboro-Gboro, acting much more aggressively than before and reactivated with a vigor never observed before by the New-Type, relentlessly blasted the three with its barrage of spheres of water, effectively scattering them. Xiva, with her weapon in Gun form, followed Kanon's example of rolling and ducking, while Brendan had to block with his heavy shield while being careful not to be pushed back into the water. The large shield, though helpful in blocking attacks, also blocked out most of his vision; though that was something he was used to, it was still a handicap.

He fell onto one knee, and quickly got up as the smelly giant moved toward him as fast as its fin-legs could carry it. He made a down-to-up slash, paused in the middle and spread his shield to its maximum width to halt its advance, and—

_Crack!_

A simple noise it was, yet it brought his allies joy. Its jaw cannons, shattered by Brendan's gargantuan blade, had been broken quite significantly, though the same could not be said about its jaw strength. It reeled its head back, Brendan proceeding to charge up every Buster Blade-user's trump card.

A purple-violet aura enveloped the length of his sword, and he swung it horizontally, spinning a full 360° and more. Oracle cells flew into the air in a wave of black-red droplets, eerily similar to thick, mammalian blood.

Brendan made the mistake of relaxing.

With the force of a bus, the Gboro-Gboro rammed him, and he was sent flying into the air, his jacket slightly ripped. "Brendan!" Kanon called.

Seeing the Aragami's head cannon poised to blast him mid-air, the Medical Private aligned her gun's barrel with Brendan in her sight, changed her gun's slots to switch bullets and tried to shoot him with Recovery bullets to cancel out the damage to be done.

She missed; the bullets were not homing. Brendan's yell of pain was short—he was engulfed in a high-speed body of water that burst in the air, raining down droplets of his blood. His body fell into the sewage water amidst the artificial drizzle, though, if the agent of it was a god, could it truly be considered false?

_SPLOOSH!_

Kanon stared in horror at her slip, and Xiva, angered, dove in to avenge her teammate's mistake. "Kanon, cover me!" she ordered. She dove in, not into the water, but down below the additional water spheres targeted at her and Kanon, toward it. Her God Arc, in blade form, spanned almost two meters in length, its crimson edge and its maroon face staring into the eyes of the Gboro-Gboro.

The god opened its mouth to the devour the girl, but so did the man-made one the false one. Its maw, crackling with the electricity and blazing with the fire generated by its core, jetted deep into the fish-like abomination's mouth, and the latter's teeth closed in around Xiva in response.

…

Adal jumped. Not into the air, but with his shoes on the floor. His grip weakened drastically, and the last Ogretail broke through his defense, tossing his now-limp form onto it. He failed to dodge its tail; the same kind of attack that sped toward his face in a blur for the 150th time now.

He was doing so well….

The simulated creature disappeared, Tsubaki's sigh heard through the speakers in the wall. He did not dare stand up; look up. His eyes stayed on the floor, his back bent downwards. His thoughts, however, were not on his failure—he was distracted by something else, his focus shattered into a million pieces by an intangible feeling that came out of nowhere and affirmed his tormenting fear; the one that had filled him with dread the entire time he fought his simulated opponents; the one that he had displaced with adrenaline and panic and the _weak, pathetic _will to focus in order to be able to fight on.

_He merely lost his focus for a moment. For now, his standard performance is more than adequate for a rookie of his caliber. If I am to compare him to Kota, I would say that Adal is more or less above him._

_He only needs to fix his ability to control his mental capacity. _"_Private Cordova,_" she said, gaining his attention, for now. He kept his gaze down, still.

"_You are dismissed._" Adal sighed, tired, exhausted, drained… "_Practice your stamina and focus. That is all._" Her voice flickered out from the speakers, and that was the end of his initializing tutorial course.

The doors opened for him when he stepped in front of them, and he walked toward the Section Elevator to get him to the men's floor, all the while with one thing on his mind: Xiva.

He felt it, did he not? Her death? He considered asking Hibari about it—she would know—but he was too afraid—too afraid to see her horrified face, to see the surrounding people's downcast expressions….

He passed by Shun, who called out to him in greeting, but Adal only forced a smile and nodded in response, not bothering to say a word, as he usually would, though he would stutter.

_I wouldn't be if it was with Xiva._

And yet he did, yesterday, when he felt like he was unable to speak with her. Heavy-hearted, full of regrets and shame for not being able to talk to her normally…had it always been like that? Perhaps not being able to talk normally with her yesterday was a sign—a sign that he was going to lose her soon, his friend.

He took a hot shower, revelling in the warmth that he would soon substitute for the one he could get from friendship, never taking his thoughts off their times together.

…

He could not bring himself to enter his room, as if doing so would break a taboo, as if Xiva's funeral was held inside, and he was not invited—worse, still, to be specifically denied entry to—

_Would you cut that out?!_ he lashed out at himself, frustrated at how much of a…

…_wimp_…

...he was being.

As he did that, however, he found himself face-to-face with Shun, and flusteredly wipe his tears away from his eyes, now red and puffy. He did his best to pretend that the red was from his warm bath.

Shun initially looked apathetic, then concerned, then annoyed. Adal found himself being manhandled by him. His God Eater strength made the feeling all the more death-conjuring.

"Look, I don't know what your problem with me is, newbie," his suddenly hostile tone alarming Adal, the Japanese boy's ochre brown eyes staring intensely at the Portuguese boy's emerald ones. "But I didn't come all the way here following you to see you bitching like the little punk you are."

He dropped him. "Ever since you acted the way you did on that mission a week ago I haven't stopped thinking about how useless you'll be to us and how early you're gonna die, so do me a favor-" he picked him up and pushed him against the door, eliciting a small groan from him. "_-and man up!_"

He shouted the last part and let go of his crumpled clothes, and took a step back from him, relaxing, sighing. "I don't know why you've been acting like this since this morning, but I'm just here to tell ya your buddy Xiva what's-her-name is back from her mission."

He walked away from the startled boy, entering the Section Elevator and leaving him behind, alone, to his own thoughts.

_Xiva's alive?_ the petrified boy thought to himself. But he thought to how he had offended Shun, his teammate.

"-and man up!_"_

How right he was… But for now, he had to see if Xiva was really not dead.

…

Brendan was unconscious and wet, his clothes drenched through and through, though it seemed like he had dried a bit during the helicopter ride back. Kanon and Tatsumi, the former of whom was in a similar but not the same state to Brendan, went to carry him to the Sick Bay, scrambling toward the Section Elevator.

There, amidst the crowd of people murmuring to themselves and scattering, taking a deep breath and sighing, was someone he knew well. Someone who looked different, but was essentially the same. Someone who was his first, and currently only, friend. Someone named Xiva Rocha, and her clothes were as wet as Brendan's.

"Adal, hey!" she greeted with her pert smile that Adal had always felt safer seeing.

She stank of sewage, but she was still Xiva.

And she was still alive.

**End of Chapter 6: Omen**

**Next Chapter:**

**The northern winds blow**

**Something stirs**


	7. Chapter 7: All the Same

**Chapter 7: All the Same**

_Day 9_

"_-so Brendan won't be able to go on any missions till the Extraction team finds his God Arc."_

"_I see. Is he going to be alright?"_

"_Yeah. At least, it didn't look too bad. He probably just needs some time to rest, I hope."_

"_What about you?" A shaky breath. "Are you hurt anywhere?"_

"_No, actually. I think I did really well." An energetic grin._

"_Rocha, Cordova."_

_It was Tsubaki Amamiya._

"_The both of you are no longer classified as Units 2 and 3 members—a rearrangement assignment from the Director._

"You are now a part of the same team, along with a few others. Until further notifications, you are to function as regular God Eaters._"_

…

That was a day ago.

The winds did not sound like a wolf's howl. Rather, to the young Cordova, it sounded like they were blowing through a hole, or an irregularly-shaped one, if one must oblige.

It was probably located somewhere high up, and was large, because the noise, the _oh-so eery_ noise, could be heard across the valley, in which laid a place labeled as the Tranquil Temple. It could be called a mirage as the snowstorms that occur there would usually block out most of the view from aerial vehicles.

_Hwooo…._

"_Let's go on our next mission together." "You are now part of the same team, along with a few others."_

And yet, and yet. And yet he was alone here, with a taciturn God Eater who could not be bothered for a conversation, or even a split-second eye-contact—it was nearly impossible to do it with Soma, though, according to Adal's meager experience with him, it could easily be called impossible instead of being nearly so.

The larger, older, and more experienced God Eater walked ahead of him, silent, dark. Through the multi-layered, though not deliberately so, snow, and the darkness that surrounded him as a consequence, to Adal, the teeth of Soma's God Arc appeared closer to those of an infernal demon than those that would belong to an actual weapon, no matter how unconventional it may be.

Soma's hooded form—it looked familiar. Familiar not to something he recognizes about the young man himself, but to something from his…memories.

That was it. He looked like the Grim Reaper.

"_Death God." "Worse than Aragami."_

Why, though? Shun told him something about it, but…what did they mean when they said "Death God"? Adal could not be bothered, unless it was an Aragami. If that were the case, he would not desire at all to get close to one such that received such a title from among God Eaters.

Soma stopped ahead of him, raising a hand. He surprised the younger boy by doing something that actually acknowledged his presence. Over the snowstorm, he heard his voice:

"R...kie, do...wn!" What alarmed Adal the most was the fact that Soma brought his God Arc into a position that signified him being prepared for an encounter with Aragami.

He turned to his left, looking away from Soma, and he saw a ghost from the past day—glowing yellow eyes, a red mask, a shadowed-over tail; a yellow stalk with a red bean at the end. An angry, sharp-tipped bean, that was.

_I thought I…?—_

A powerful gust of wind carried him away—_seemed _to. In all the truth deities of truth could promise, it was a hand; a mighty arm that brought him off the ground, that raised him from the dirty earth and sent him soaring into the heavens.

The storm cleared and Adal fell into a snow mound meters away. It was time to fight—again.

…

A northern wind blew across the dead city, a man in a brown long coat shielding his lime-green eyes from the dust that might get into them. Xiva did the same, though she could not tell if Kota and Yuu followed as well, for they were walking behind them.

It was cold, and came from the north, even though it was hard to tell with how the world currently was.

"Lindow, what's wrong?" Kota asked him, anxious about the sudden call he had gotten.

The man placed his phone back into his pocket, the message quite alarming. He offered the boys an encouraging smile, as he usually did. "Just a call from Hibari. She said we're needed in the Temple Area."

"Why?" Xiva asked, joining the emerging banter.

"Hmm, let's see…," he mock-thought to himself, looking up and scratching his chin with a gloved finger. "You don't have to come if you don't want to, but she said it's pretty important.

"A horde of Kongou; the ones you and Kota took on together yesterday," he said, referring to Yuu. "And a pretty big one, I'm afraid."

_The Temple Area? Isn't that where…?_

"Is Adal alright?" Xiva asked him, suddenly worried.

Lindow's one visible eye widened a bit at the girl's hidden zeal. "Hm? She didn't say anything about Adal, but she said that she couldn't reach the helicopter that carried the boys there, and Soma's not responding."

Seeing Xiva's disappointed, unsatisfied expression, he quickly added, "Oh yeah, they can't contact Adal in the first place since only veterans like Sakuya and I get to carry mobile receivers in case our earpieces don't work." He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "That includes Soma, of course."

"So, what now?" Yuu prompted.

"We're ordered to go back first," he answered, turning to Yuu as he spoke. "Apparently, three new God Eaters are joining us."

Xiva, mildly interested in the new information, wondered if they were her new teammates, along with Adal's?

"Alright, let's go!" she exclaimed, impatiently jogging off to the meeting point. Lindow and Yuu quickly followed after her, with Kota left shortly behind, scrambling along.

"H-hey! Wait for me! _Hey!_"

_Remember everything you've learned today, _Sakaki's words rang clear in his head,_ and I want you to alert me as soon as possible the moment you _think _something _might _be related to this event._ Lindow trudged away, along the sun-basked ground as the burning, yellow sphere deepened its own horizons….

Kota, following behind the group, scurried toward them, Yuu and Xiva teasing him, the former's antics more tame than the latter's.

**End of Chapter 7: All the Same**

**Next Chapter:**

**Naivety**

**An unforeseen killing**


	8. Chapter 8: Green and Black

**Chapter 8: Green and Black**

_Day 9_

The hairs on his arms rose, like needles, and he felt nausea merging with his blood. The sickeningly cold, dry wind, as bitter as it was frigid, kept on blowing over him. The Kongou marched on to finish him off.

Adal's heart pounded.

Once.

Then he stood up, his sword raised—he slashed it.

He slashed it. A blur, a quick splatter of blood.

He inspected his sword, then, raising its tip to his face.

The Oracle fluids remained on the surface.

Dirty.

The simian-like creature tumbled backwards, on its chest a gash. It stood on both legs. It looked at Adal.

The boy stood strong, gazing deep into its eyes—he saw nothing. Black tendrils erupted from his armlet, and he bent forwards, gripping his wrist in pain. It was like smoke; that which rose from the red surface of his bracelet, from the hole in the center of its silver lining.

Something growled.

It was the Kongou.

Death spun vertically in the air, like a wheel in the sky, formed from the shadows of his past. Death; Soma.

His blade took off the neckless head of the Aragami. It splattered along the icy ground, which was ice, and Adal saw that it was, indeed, rubbish; a lump—a black, motionless mass, shadowed over by its own pitiful form.

He looked to the side. The other Kongou was dead; the one that boldly took on the veteran. It was dead.

The one still living roared a true roar, and there was a rumble, a tremor—it came from the main temple. Buddha smiled.

…

"My name is Lisi Foerster, and I am happy to make your acquaintance."

She did not seem like it.

She had almost completely white hair—unlike snow and like salt; their white grains, that is. Xiva caught faint traces of blonde long gone. On the side of her face—the right side—she had a sidelock. It was duller than white; more like a faded, dark lavender.

_A miscoloration,_ Xiva noted. The girl standing before her and the three members of the 1st Unit was clearly German, if her slight accent was anything to go on. She had a white cravat that cascaded down her front, and around the fabric was a cross-shaped pendant. She wore a short cloak whose pleasant brown complemented the rest of her outfit tamely. Her belt, for some reason missing its front part, was instead worn by attaching it around her hip. Frills decorated her button-up shirt and her cuffs.

She had an expressionless face, and though Xiva thought that the girl was squinting at her, it was the paleness of the blue of her eyes that made her think so. Her irises were so light, they almost seemed transparent.

"She is sent from the German Fenrir Branch after a consensus from the Board of Directors," Tsubaki clarified. Shaking hands, Xiva noticed that the girl was taller than her—she stood at about 168cm tall, whereas she, along with Adal, was as tall as 165cm.

"She, along with another God Eater, will be joining you and Adal to form a different unit. However, the other God Eater bound for the Far East Fenrir Branch met some technical difficulties in relation to the weather over the Temple Area.

"God Eaters Soma and Cordova have been sent there in advance to secure his arrival, but the latest updates from the Aragami Detection System have alerted us of unforeseen circumstances, which involve a giant Kongou horde." Tsubaki held Xiva's gaze strongly, her next words signifying great import worthy of an emergency mission:

"You, along with Lisi, are to be deployed to the Tranquil Temple ASAP."

"Um," a timid voice, though it was, by no means, soft, sounded from behind the New-Type girl, and beside the New-Type boy. Kota raised his hand as if he were attending Sakaki's class. "Are we going too?" he inquired. "I'm not sure why Yuu and I are being told this if we aren't really going."

Tsubaki allowed herself a smirk, the uncharacteristic twitch of the mouth taking aback everyone present but Lisi. "Of course you're going, too. I hope you find _Mousy Blow_ helpful in your endeavors."

_That's right,_ Xiva reminded herself. _Kota inherited his God Arc from Tsubaki._

"Go now. Collect your God Arcs. The pilot is waiting for you on the roof."

As they went, Kota mumbled something about missing an episode of _Bugarally_.

…

With how still, bent, and frozen the rotors were, it could be almost impossible for anyone to look at them and be able to imagine them spinning at speeds capable of lifting a helicopter, rotors excluded, and three people, along with a God Arc. Ice just started forming on their underside, with one blade broken off. They had been jammed like that since one of the Fallen Kongou species blasted their turbulence-weakened vehicle out of the air.

_Out of all the routes we could have taken, and all the schedules we could have been sent on, it had to be here and now? _It was only luck that the dense snow cushioned the aerial transportation's fall…or was it the pilot's skill? It was still luck that such an amount was gathered there; that there was a sloping crevice in which snow could gather.

_Still, this amount…._

Isao Yamaguchi peered out the open doorway; the door itself had been blasted open by said God Arc. He ran his hand through his graying, but otherwise dark, brown hair and scratched his stubbled chin. Going back inside, he went to check on the pilot, who was moaning in his seat. His visor was cracked, but his headset was still intact, albeit a small dent on the length of the microphone, which, coupled with the partly-weather-induced poor reception, happened to render it completely useless…

...At least, for the moment.

He had to bend over due to the vehicle's low ceiling to move toward the pilot. "Where does it hurt?"

"My leg," he groaned through grit teeth. "Some glass pierced it, I think…."

Seeing as how rummaging through the contents of his duffel bag did not give him much time, the older man spilled the objects onto the seats at the back, the paper documents, whose material was starting to weaken due to the cold atmosphere, included. With trembling hands, he scrambled for his first aid equipments and got out some of the most basic items.

Lifting the man off his seat after unbuckling him from it was not easy, especially with the snow that crashed through the front window coming in, but soon he had him lying on the back seats, having put aside his belongings. Licking his lips and shutting out terrible thoughts, he began to work.

As he wrapped up the pilot's injury, the middle-aged man could only look outside in fear of the Kongou spotting them, and sent a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening.

_Tell Hotaru to hurry up…and keep him safe._

…

_Whuppa, whuppa, whuppa, whuppa…._

The blizzard had diminished significantly by the time the helicopter flew over the wintry landscape. The pilot had to land quickly, since the weather was nonetheless uncooperative, especially with six people on board this time. "There they are!" Xiva shouted over the noise, which would have drowned out her voice for the others had they not been God Eaters, pointing down at the ground from the doorway. She caught in her vision something akin to an avalanche traveling downhill from a massive temple.

Yuu leaned in to take a closer look, as did Lisi. Lindow, on the other hand….

"Lindow? What's wrong?" Kota asked. The older man had been quiet during the entire trip there, and uncharacteristically so. His half-lidded expression was not worn out of drowsiness, and a cigarette was not in his mouth as it usually was.

"Oh, nothing," the man responded. "Just…thinking about stuff." Uncrossing his arms, he went to where Xiva stood by the door, Yuu and Lisi moving aside to let him look. The harsh winds kept on blowing. He peered downwards, his enhanced vision allowing him spot the tiny, yellow dots, and faint hints of blue, and red…and an unfamiliar dash of green and black. Lindow narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Looks like they're having a really rough time down there…." He smirked at his teammates. "Alright, everyone! We're gonna jump! And make your entrance stylish; God Eater style!" He snapped his fingers as he said this.

The pilot immediately objected, picking up on his voice with his enhanced radio set. "No! No way you can survive that jump! I'm lowering our altitude first." 

The experienced God Eater rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Welp, there goes my joke."

Kota sighed in relief, Yuu patting his back.

…

Two of the Kongou were down, but then they were surrounded by a dozen more.

A dozen was an insane number, considering they had to take on all of them at the same time.

But they did it anyway. Soma's deathly silence as he dashed toward his enemies with his blade flaring outwards gave away his heavy-heartedness to Adal, the latter himself taking on two at a time—for some reason, the Aragami appeared to be more interested in the Death God—probably because they considered him to be the more serious threat of the two.

Indeed, it was Adal's third mission.

Third.

The two Kongou punched him, the one on his right going first. He blocked it with a quick snap of his shield, and slashed its hand away, before the one on his left went for a quick, strong jab at him. Adal blocked that, too, and slashed its hand away, this time aiming for its underarm biceps, a down-to-up slash.

Again, his attacks this time… They had an unfamiliar sense of quickness to his swings—they looked more like a black blur wherever he swung his arm, and though he knew that it looked that way to the Aragami, he could see his arm perfectly clearly, bar the snow curtain.

Splattering Oracle here, and splattering them there, he did—he did not hesitate or stop to think about it; he just completely accepted it as the way it was, as strange as it seemed. He was tempted to think that it might be the cold that inhibited the Kongou's movements, but he knew that that was not the case.

Aragami, as they could adapt to different environments, by no means were placed at a disadvantage by being in an unfamiliar one, except for being weaker than locally adapted Aragami. By adapting, they only became stronger in that area, gaining the advantages of having the same element as the, usually, weather, if not the environment itself as well.

At least, as far as he could recall, that was what he learned with Xiva during Sakaki's class.

Soma was a fierce fighter, but he did not lack in defensive knowledge, either. In fact, if Adal could say anything about Soma's style, it was that he was more of a defensive fighter than an offensive one.

Powder snow would blow into the air whenever Soma slashed downwards, but since that occurred rarely, Adal would say that with the overwhelming number of Kongou he was taking on all at once, Rejector had the dominant use when compared to the sword in this battle.

Evil One flew, splattering blood and scattering lives. Its teeth pierced and tore, hooking onto skin and releasing them, letting the monkey gods slam into one another.

His shield cast aside and eliminated distractions; when Soma locked his eyes on a single Aragami, all it could do in response was to attack him head-on or have the others of its kind take the blows for it.

There was no escape.

However, they were still gods.

Soma was starting to feel the strain from the countless blows that he pushed himself against, arms shaking, trembling and feeling weak.

He was losing his ground, and all the while, only two Kongou have been taken down, and neither of them was part of this wave. So far, he could only wear them down little by little, more Aragami taking the injured's place to let them recover.

Soma could slightly tell apart the weaker ones; the ones he had focused his attacks on. They slipped in and out of his vision, allowing the others attack for them. _Focus on the others first!_

They jumped in from behind their ranks, and the temptations were too strong. Soma went straight for the blow, letting his guard down, and he felt pressure on his back.

_Too late! _He fell with the Kongou, but in the process, he had lost his mental balancing tides against them.

He risked a glance at his unremarkable ally… At this rate, they were going to lose.

And this after all that he had said about Eric to that New-Type rookie….

_Damn them! Sending me on this mission to die with this guy…!_

All his life….

It came from behind them; the shot. It hit a Kongou square in the face, ripping off its mask with its unforgiving claws….

A flash of green came into his vision, and an all-too-familiar black as well. _It couldn't be…_.

The Aragami turned around, but Soma was still too petrified to take this chance to strike at least one or two down.

When he saw the man, standing meters away him, raise the barrel of his Blast Gun God Arc and point it in his direction, Soma did the thing recognizable in millennia past.

He raised his shield.

**End of Chapter 8, Black and Green**

**Next Chapter:**

**A ghost**

**A hint of death**


	9. Chapter 9: Awakening

**Chapter 9: Awakening**

_Day 9_

The explosion was earth-shattering, and quite literally so, to the defeat of the Kongou bunch. Without it, Soma and Adal would have, without a doubt, been overwhelmed. It was, however, not nearly sufficient to take them all out at once.

The snow was strange thereafter. They became like wilted flakes of corn, and were of an indeterminable color. Perhaps—_Probably_—, it was due to the burst of light that occurred right in front of Soma's eyes…or it could be the scattered Oracle seeping into them; the snow.

All at once, cracking noises filled the hostile air, the crumbling pipes falling onto the uneven ground.

Soma had successfully blocked the blast, but….

Adal lay on the ground on his stomach, clothes crumpled thoroughly. He seemed to be…unconscious?

A Kongou near him grabbed him by his hair, lifting him up, and still the rookie was motionless otherwise, form limp, his God Arc swinging from his hand threateningly unbalancedly. He had been incapacitated, definitely. Oracle bullets did not hurt God Eaters, but they did still affect their surroundings. He must have hit his head on something, then.

Without thinking, Soma ran toward it, blade at the ready. The Kongou shifted its eyes downward, toward Soma, and looked at him with a blank expression.

It was still processing what the black blur was.

Its teeth sank into the Kongou's belly, and erupted from the other side. It roared, Oracle cells flying, and soon it was gone.

_Three down. But…_

He looked back.

They were coming. No trace of whoever fired that shot was present, aside from the footprints leading away from where he saw him.

There was still a full dozen left, along with two white ones; Fallen Kongou.

Soma's hand moved up to his earpiece, before remembering that it was useless. With a click of the tongue, he rummaged inside his belt pack and hit something hard. He moved backward slowly, the Kongou marching on towards him and Adal.

He threw the stun grenade, picked the limp God Eater up, and ran.

_Bang!_

…

Hotaru ducked underneath the low, fallen roof of a house, hiding in the shadow it provided. The footsteps outside provided no shortage of tiny tremors as the confused Aragami hobbled about disorientedly.

He waited.

They started to scatter, splitting up. Two sets of legs went past him, to the right, after moving back and forth, as if confused as to which direction to go.

It took all the luck in this world for them to be the last to go.

He emerged from the shadows and followed them to a corner. Fixing his sight on them, the two creatures were bombarded mercilessly with electricity, sparks rippling across the surface of their bodies, destroying their cells' integrity, denaturing them with his most powerful bullets.

They could not fight back, tripping over one another and being pushed back with every shot, their body parts flying apart, chunks falling off their backs, their arms.

They were dead, yes, but the others had heard the noise. He turned his head to the side, slightly. They were not waiting for him to make his move. He was, however, waiting for them. Decor-bullets flew from the barrel of his God Arc, spinning around them, colors bursting into sparks that tickled his face a bit.

The Kongou jumped back from them, as if sharing a hive mind. Hotaru ran, leaving a flare behind.

The red trail it left behind disappeared soon after that.

…

Soma dropped his fellow God Eater on the ground, not bothering to be gentle about it. He did not settle down in a house, since if they were attacked in one, great difficulty would have to be overcome in order to escape to the outside.

He thought about how he had let his God Arc drop on the way here, but realized, then, that the younger boy had not.

He caught sight of black tentacles wrapping his hand tightly with the hilt of his God Arc, but they soon were gone. Where to, he did not see, but Soma's eyes remained wide open for a possible attack—and from swift surprise.

His heart was still beating wildly fast, but he reminded himself to stay calm—they had escaped the Aragami.

_But why, dammit?_

Why had there been so many of them at once?

He dismissed what he had just seen as mere illusion caused by the snow and his just-acknowledged exhaustion—if it _was_ an Aragami…

_I'd probably be dead by now, anyway…._

He shuffled for some ampules—they were most effective in waking up a God Eater from unconsciousness. Link-Aids are performed only when the Oracle activity within their bodies had been diminished, and to restore them to their optimal conditions.

The God Eaters in question would not pass out, but would find it hard to move. It happened usually only when their bodies, coated with a thin Oracle barrier, sustained enough damage.

Restore Pills were consumed to fix that problem.

He was about to inject some into Adal's bracelet, approaching cautiously—in case those tentacles burst out and attack him—,when he woke up, eyes fluttering open.

He almost swung his Arc when Soma stopped him with a sharp gesture. The older boy found himself fingering the hilt of his own.

He was not breathing heavily, nor was he sweating. He merely panicked a little bit, eyes darting around, before realizing that they were safe. All the while, Soma kept his eyes trained on him. When he narrowed his eyes, looking at something high up in the air behind him, he decided that Adal did not pose a threat, and turned around to see what he was looking at.

A red flare… Only God Eaters used those.

Could it be reinforcements?

Soma closed his eyes and listened in silence… _No. _He could only hear the shrieks of the Aragami, varying in pitch and length. There was another God Eater in the area. Loud explosions, for some reason unnoticed by him before, were what appeared to be scattering them.

"Get up," he said, hefting his God Arc into a readied position.

A quiet voice behind him spoke, breathful, breathless. "Yes."

**End of Chapter 9: Awakening**

**Next Chapter:**

**Reunion**

**A reckless death**


	10. Chapter 10: Death

**Chapter 10: Death**

_Day 9_

Soma immediately jumped in, smashing in the head of one of the Aragami, while Adal jogged from behind them. Soma _could_ be reckless, or impatient, or simply to-the-point.

_This is my first time trying this, but…._ Adal leaned backwards, unwittingly sticking a bit of his tongue out. He raised his God Arc and held it backwards, the tip of its blade pointing at the back of a temporarily incapacitated Kongou. All at once, two appendages, each forming a jaw respective to their positions, erupted outward slowly from its core. _That wasn't too hard…, _Adal thought with relief.

"Eat!" he shouted, as if yelling a command to his God Arc. He could not explain why he did that—it was an impulse. _Give me its _power_; the power of a _god_!_ The appendages—_jaws—_ripped into the posterior of the creature, gathering Oracle Cells and Energy, scraping away as much as possible from its shell.

The Kongou twitched violently, and before he knew it, Adal was staring it directly in the face.

The bravado curled up and died in a corner in his mind. Roaring in terror, which, in turn, instilled terror in the larger beast, he swung his Arc, which was still burying its mouth in the Aragami's flesh, away from him with all the strength his arm could muster for him.

The yellow monster flew high above the ground, missing parts of its lower body, destroying houses, splinters of wood bursting from the site of impact.

Adal collapsed onto one knee immediately, suddenly drained. Gravity shifted up and down for him, and he was feeling peculiarly…hollow?

Empty. Not in an abstract sense, but in a physical way.

He felt light.

His God Arc's mouth retracted, and he almost believed that it regarded him with respect.

It was Burst.

Its system was functioning at its max capacity, its inner Aragami's appetite evoked.

He felt the need to move; to do _more._

He turned around and was delighted; the Kongou had turned toward him.

It was time to eat.

…

Hotaru kept dodging. He desperately ran and tried to regain enough Oracle energy for him to use against the beasts, but after the two he had killed to distract the others from the helicopter, along with the large shot he had fired earlier, as well as the two others he defeated, his Reserves were nothing but dry.

From the corner of his eye, he caught it; the absent-minded swing of a tail. He was trapped. In front of him, a Kongou came charging, so, in that instant, if he were to retract his step and move any other way, he could be crippled by the rampaging beast's weight.

Hoping against hope, he blasted it anyway, believing that he was out of bullets.

The tail sent him tumbling away, skidding across the ground to a stop half a meter away. The amount of pain was unexpected. He groaned and tried to get up, away from the one that was coming straight for him, but when a shadow passed over his face, he calmed down and waited for it—Death.

Death to the gods, that was.

Soma came down on the formation of the Kongous like a meteor, slamming Oracle steel into their faces, regardless of condition. He was doing so with so much energy it was as if he had just started his first mission in ages. The blue-hooded one rushed through them, dealing significant damage to their structures that forced responses out of them, for if they did not react, the consequences following a two-second span of time void of any attempts to counter him would be grave.

Arcs and curves drew red lines of visual spectacles in the air, often times low and high, rarely in between where the Kongou's torsos were aligned. The weapon moved from dimension to dimension, shifting its rate of movement; the amount of distance it traversed with every swing, with different amounts of power pushing it from behind. The Kongous' heads bobbed up and down, attempting to follow its movements and predict his next strike.

It was nice and all, seeing God Eaters fighting Aragami, without any sense of time. However…

Something in Hotaru's mind clicked, and a previously sudden rush of giddiness came into the spot that behind his jaw, on the left side of his face, where he sometimes fancied clicking the bone of his jaw and making it pop. The Gun was ready, and so was he.

_Soma._ The Death God stopped in his tracks, and was silent. Then he jumped away as a shining ball of mechanical fire slammed into the ring of Aragami; the feasting table of the monkey gods, and there was an ignition that occurred within the orb's center, which triggered its outer shells to burst through their encasings, burning through Earth a hundred times over.

The snow became miserable, soot marking the territory of the Flame Giants, Muspell's flames eating up the remaining limbs of the mock-primates. Hotaru, from where he laxly sat, could almost imagine the Oracle energy-powered-and-created nanomachines eating and cleaning up the last of the Cells.

He just sat there and wished for the roaring to end already.

…

He did not remember when it happened, but Soma had left his side some time ago. And he was managing. "For once, stop complaining. For once, stop relying on others. For once, let's try and see how much you can do on your own." Those were the words spoken by nobody who was him, and not by him—he was busy. He did not say it. Nobody did. Then the Power slipped away. He was not ready for that.

Still in a power-induced fantasy, he no loner was when the arm of waking up sent him flying away.

The ground was overly hostile; it felt like he had just landed on a spike of ice. ...Was he bleeding? His arm was weak, bones popping as he moved it. He was desperate to know, to make sure for himself whether or not there was an injury on his abdomen. He felt something sticky and wet, and it was undoubtedly, from the hypnotizing warmth on his long-numbed palms, that he was bleeding out.

He was naïve. He had thought that Xiva would die earlier than him out of sheer superstition. He was naïve, and arrogant. It was _he_ who was about to die.

He felt extra tremors on the ground, and though they were different from the Kongou's stomps, he lazily guessed that they were merely signs of the arrival of more of their pack's members.

_I'm sorry, Xiva._ He was going to leave his friend to be alone, was he not?

He had arrogant, and was naïve, indeed.

A monkey's shriek, and its arm that covered his world in black.

**End of Chapter 10: Death**

**Next Chapter:**

**A new unit**

**A broken face sneers**


	11. Chapter 11: Girasol

**Chapter 11: Girasol**

_Day 9_

He felt like his head was being hung up by his hair, his teeth and jaw and eyebrows clenched together into a common spot in the center of his face. He opened his eyes in breathless panic, and he discovered a world of white, but the white was in his world. He looked upon the surface of the seemingly flat dimension; there were layers and strings of white bundled together, like ice, but so far from it.

The thing moved, dislodging itself from the snow, and all of a sudden Adal felt a killing cold grabbing his jaw and pulling him down by it. The cold was not of the lack of life within him, but of that outside of him. The object did not gleam or glisten at first, but when he blinked he was struck with a sudden ray of light.

It was a distant object; pure, but to be avoided due to how hostile it was. Looking up, he saw the face of his savior and was enveloped in the coolness of the world of a frigid blue; the German above him inspected his condition—his mental state. And he was thankful.

He was Thankful.

Her face blurred, and before he knew it, the Kongou all around him were blasted away by a mighty strike that flared up from within the veins of the God Eater, a gust of wind making a vacuum-like atmosphere around him as he still laid down.

She did not take another look at him, and he decided to do the same. He was up before he knew it and had cut down two Aragami adjacent to his blade-arm by the moment he could use his lower body properly again, stabbing the leg of each of them as they swung their arms at him. Oracle flew about, cut through without intent by a mauve-black sword that tore through the flesh of the upper bodies of the Aragami, leaving open air to hang before the sword opened up its terrifying heart.

Adal staggered and stood, the healing bullets fired by the one who stood before him, with her back to him, having healed his wounds, and watched as she Devoured the mock-primates, removing two threats from the map.

It happened. It was not driven by a motive, or by instinct, or by _them_. It simply happened; the bump of their wrists, the slaps and the handshake between him and her. He jumped onto an outspread arm, minimizing his weight and the rough brush of his shoes on Xiva's skin, and felt his stomach drop horizontally through the air as he was launched toward three Kongou. For a moment, he felt a lack of confidence that underlaid his fear of ineffectuality, before he felt the blade in his hand cut through them anyway, and he reached a sudden stop in the air, decelerating quickly and landing through floating air. He cut only two out of the three he saw, and proceeded to block a strike from them that sent him skidding away anyway. He stabbed his Arc downwards into the snow in response to reconquer his lost inertia.

They were charging him, the ledge to his back preventing escape, and the gap between the two Kongou allowing for it. He was fast—faster than these Aragami. Boldly, he took the risk and dashed in between them, but did not keep on moving to strike them from behind, for they had turned around as they found their tails hacked off. The other one ended up throwing up the snow from the ground and covering its allies in it where Adal should have been according to its calculations. Throughout all this, his breath was trepidatious in nature and actions gambling. He was a God Eater. The weakness was in his mind, and his only.

He was just as strong as any other God Eater in the world. _Yes,_ he panted. _You're strong. You're strong._

A glint robbed him of his focus and prompted the raise of his blade. Black tendrils appeared on the surface of his God Arc and encouraged the splitting of the physical bullet that blasted through the chest of the Aragami in front of him from the barrel of Xiva's rifle. Perhaps downing the other two would be a too convenient thing to ask their luck for, but Adal stayed motionless there, asking himself what he was doing deep down, consciously, and waiting calmly shallowly, unconsciously.

There was silence that confirmed it for him—their ends. He spun in a circle, God Arc gobbling up their remnants in a single motion. There were traces of the Kongou left behind, but they soon crumbled from the Oracle energy from the bullet that ate them up.

There was another silence, this one covering the site of their battle. The other sectors of the Temple saw battle, but for then, Xiva and Adal were left alone. They caught their breath, Xiva breaking out in a relieved and excited smile. Adal had to laugh in return, a static atmosphere settling over the area.

…

"Fighting alone again, Soma?" Lindow slashed down an Aragami in the middle and tore another one across its body, remarking to himself how delicate they were. Soma had done quite a number on them before they arrived, which he found still impressive no matter how high one's rank was.

"I had to get these guys away from the other kid," Soma huffed, the snide comment completely lost to Kota but not to Yuu, the latter laxly risking a glance at the older male without being lazy. Kota kept on shooting at the ones that started appearing over the rooftops of the houses that were slowly being buried deeper in snow, his forehead slick with sweat, some rivulets getting into his eyes.

Mousy Blow truly had a name that suited it.

Lindow ran to their aid, Yuu cutting down the Kongou that was engaging him in a battle right after the man in the brown long coat took off its leg.

"They keep on coming..."

…

"I suppose I have to thank you," the American-Japanese man said in almost breathless English to the young woman as she took the unconscious pilot into her arms. He looked behind her at the unmoving remains of the yellow creatures that were just showing signs of godly decomposition, before moving his attention to the large slab of white that they called a God Arc that she held in one hand alone. He mentally compared his height to its length before thinking that it was useless to feel belittled by a non-living thing at the moment.

Despite being at least twenty or fifteen centimeters shorter than his 180cm body, she showed no sign of fatigue after disposing of the monsters that possessed world-destroying capacity. _This is a God Eater…_ he had seen them before, interacted with them before, made acquaintances in them before, but after having his leg almost torn off by a simple, toying swipe from one of them and seeing her wrestle with not one, but _two_ of them at once before striking their parts clean off like that, he found behaving composedly extremely hard to do.

"Do not mind my presence, Sir. Also, I can carry you, if you want." The offer made him realize how badly hurting his leg was. He was barely limping anymore, but only hugged his bag to his chest instead of making any progress in moving. He realized this when the girl stopped moving onward and only waited for him. He was sweating profusely, shaking hard due to the cold and the adrenaline that kept on being produced despite already being out of danger—for then. The image and the sound of the Kongou he experienced right before she came by to save him lingered on. He already could tell that he was not going to sleep well that night, and felt like sleeping like the pilot in her arms.

Asking a girl of her age—_fifteen—_would be inappropriate for him. Hotaru should be there some time soon. And he was.

A black blur shot through a brick wall right after he sensed Lisi tensing and shoving the man in his direction. He stared on in horror and slowly turned his reluctant head in the direction of the electric explosion he heard vaporizing the snow after seeing the young man he was surrogate father to crash into the girl who had come by to help him. A large, gaping hole appeared in the temple where the Buddhist statues were located, where the two God Eaters had been blasted into. He took one more look at the Gun-type God Arc of Hotaru Yonamine before seeing a golden Kongou as his judge in the afterlife, because, in his opinion, he was already dead.

What was left was either a painless death or a long, painful one.

**End of Chapter 11: Girasol**

**Next Chapter:**

**An image of the gods**

**Volcanic burn**


	12. Chapter 12: Golden Armor

**Chapter 12: Golden Armor**

_Day 9_

What stood before him was a juggernaut of godly force, imposing its greater size and presence in comparison to his onto him, fierce and grand. Isao Yamaguchi was truly clueless pertaining to his options; he did nothing but stand in fear that in form was nearly identical to awe. This was the first time he ever had any such encounter; the first time he was facing death so directly. The monkey god was more similar to a gorilla this time as it had no tail as opposed to its minions, made of sheer bulk and pure cunning—its body appeared to be enclosed within a form-fitting shell formed of shields, clad in an impenetrable fortress the size of a small car.

What terrified him most terribly, however, was the fact that he did not know where and how it was looking and seeing, as its face was destroyed, the fingerprints left on its architecture not those of a God Eater, but of Nature. Three smaller faces, not simian, but were rather caricatures of human sacrifices', were aligned horizontally on a semi-circular depression located just above its open mouth like an underworld plateau on which offering rituals were carried out. They were in glee in its astral mouth. Its fangs were perfectly sharp; razor, like those on the highest quality saw he could picture—in fact, it was because of their appearance that he was able to conjure such an image. It was its appearance that inspired motivation.

An ominous aura flared constantly around it, like a declaration or insignia of power, superiority, and ungodly menace. Sparks, ribbons and entire limbs of electricity sparkled and writhed around a glorious mane that arced and hovered about its form; it made him truly want to believe in an Eastern religion if it helped him get a chance at living on. Laughably, he stood defiant. If he had noticed, he would have resented himself for the brazen act.

Its form cast a shadow that entirely blanketed his stature that was puny in comparison, and more. He simply did not want to risk a glance behind.

For him, he was not yet saved; not quite, at least, when a red blade grazed its arm from behind, when a giant sawblade bounced funnily off its arc adornment, when a light splatter of rain—bullets—seemed awfully strangely like silver flies on its right shoulder—not at all. Whoever the God Eaters who tried to save him were, they were immediately blasted away by the shockwave released from its body when it decided to give them a tiny tingle of what it was capable of. All of a sudden Isao found himself flying into a frozen rotor blade over the roof of the mechanical transport, stalactites of ice drawing blood where they touched him through his torn clothing. The tiny amounts of smoke rising from his wounds made him painfully realize that he had been fried internally as well as externally; his hands, where his gloves had betrayed him, were black and entirely numb; he could not even sense a trace of the familiar, cold numbness that the winds would otherwise be causing him.

Unfortunately, the weather itself seemed to be dormant in the presence of the monster before him. The previous ones within the horde might have been powerful and humanity-transcendent, but this was the true face—or faces—of what the divine wraths upon them could offer. Woe, the spectacles of human blood galore that they could provide and make a show out of...to even higher ones.

He had lost the pilot in the blast—his current location might as well have been oblivion—where his consciousness and hope were then going off to. In terms of location and direction...the Fierce Kongou, growling and snarling in a rising tone, was in front of him, several meters away, and moving away from him and toward a lone God Eater with a green-blue coat and a white undershirt.

…

This was new species that Yuu was facing. He was supposed to take on Mid-Level Aragami at most in his current position as a God Eater, or perhaps two or three when accompanied by at least one more God Eater. What this..._creature_ was must be capable of taking on two Vajras at once. What he had seen of Large Aragami were nothing compared to the sheer firepower this thing seemed to possess. He looked at Lindow and Kota, then back to it again. Panic was an uncharacteristic state of mind for the boy, but seeing as how even _Lindow_ had a soot covered cut right under his lower lip, he could not help it. He was just a Private Recruit on some of his first missions. He could not be bothered to die for the Den yet.

He gripped his Arc tightly, telling himself to get it together as the enemy's approach seemed to get faster and faster. However, if he had to die, then he will do it. In fact, its face appeared to be quite vulnerable to his blade right now…. Sweat formed on his palms, making them feel slick through his gloves, and when the two God Eaters he had not yet taken a good look at before rose from the debris and immediately started engaging the Aragami, an imaginary spark blasted open his closed hand, his fingers twitching to fight.

He gave Kota's fallen form one last glance before charging the roaring monster with his mentor Lindow at his side, changing his Arc into its Assault Gun component.

Lindow and the other two entered Link Burst and he started firing his malevolent rounds.

…

Strategy was an important aspect of virtually every fight. The battles against Aragami were no exception. Behind the myriad veils of Siberian cold, a Kongou, the remnant of a multitude of otherworldly beasts, were struggling against something. It was writhing in position, but its motions were different from the Aragami's when they had stepped on a Snare Trap that Xiva was familiar with. Adal, with his newfound determination, made a move to approach it, but she held her arm across his chest. A shake of her head. She turned her Arc against it, pointing the barrel at aberrant life-form. A Spark bullet was launched, and as it flew, the Kongou turned. Within the dimension of microseconds she gained access to upon the injection of Oracle Cells into her lithe body, her enhanced eyes caught the aura of darkness that hugged the Aragami's skin so tightly—the altogether different hue of the skin that coated the Kongou.

The Spark bullet was caught by a flying fist, and it exploded upon contact, its billowing soul bursting across the length of the Kongou's stocky arm. Her eyes widened a twitch, and as the ash-blue monster started to barrel towards her and her friend, she yelled to him the words she knew he would not understand: "Run!"

She kicked him across his chest, a small pang of guilt dispersing across her body as she felt his flesh through her shoe.

Polar Kongous, as she had read in the Database, were invulnerable to Sunder and Piercing attacks—Adal would get killed attempting to fight it. Xiva, on the other hand… Her Arc's Blade, Blistered, had both Blaze and Spark elements in its Oracle.

_Let's try this out, shall we!_

Her Arc activated. Oracle dust resembling the storm clouds of a volcano enveloped the sword in a n organized profile. Soon, static electricity formed of Oracle activity crackled along the face of the blade, and the edge of her sword began to light up from the heat. The snow anywhere three meters near it began to melt into nothingness.

A blinding yellow light burst from her Arc's core and she side-stepped the Kongou's attack and sent a precise blow to its tail. It should have broken immediately, but this exchange had confirmed it for her—Adal _must_ be kept out of this. Regular Kongou would have stumbled and crashed from it, but with the way this one reacted… It became enraged, a red flash erupting from its body in all angles—the sign of Oracle activity intensifying in response to danger.

Adal tasted the snow in his mouth. What the hell was that for? "Run"? "Xiva-"

"Listen to me, Adal!" He did, flinching slightly at the urgency in her voice. "Catch up to the others. They should need help with the rest of the Kongous. This is a Fallen species—your Arc won't do a thing to it. I'll catch up to you, I promise."

Adal did not understand much from her definition of a Fallen species, but he knew enough from the strike she sent against it—he had seen it once before on the battlefield when the two of them went on a mission together. It had activated to her surprise, but it helped them take out the second Gboro-Gboro much more quickly than they had with the first one. An "Arc Gimmick", she told him Sakaki said.

He thought about protesting, when she raised a Stun Grenade and give him a determined look, he knew it was useless to argue. He knew it was final. He nodded—the last thing he could offer to her—and ran in the opposite direction as a semi-familiar _bang_ and the flash of pure, white light accompanying it engulfed two of his senses.

He ran up the ziggurat-like area, where he saw a horrifying scene. "Wha…."

A golden god rushed him, a blue-jacketed God Eater simultaneously crashing into a wall.

**End of Chapter 12: Golden Armor**

**Next:**

**Splitting a head**

**A photo**


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